fly with me
by ink teardrops
Summary: He could fly anywhere he wanted, but he always seems to come back to you —-Andromeda and Ted, climbing up the cerulean sky


**Notes: **Tedromeda, because I have missed writing about them. This was originally a drabble but it blossomed into a nearly 1k metaphorical oneshot about birds. I regret nothing.

This was written for our little infinity (Ellatoo)'s 'Florence and The Machine Challenge' over on HPFC – Bird Song, write a fic about birds. I'm _kind of_ proud of this, but at the same time, I _kind of_ don't like it, but, anyway, I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

_"A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current end and dips his wing in the orange sun's rays and dares to claim the sky." - _Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

* * *

You're flying, flying with your silken wings of cream and emerald and your beak of golden, flying through the cerulean sky with the sun caressing your back, through clouds that taste like endless opportunities and the promise of _freedom._

You're soaring through the air, singing in your beautiful voice, singing of the streams of silver and forests of ochre patchwork that one day you're going to visit. You paint the world in hues of hope and you fill the world with your birdsong and you hope that one day, they'll finally listen.

You're gliding above everyone and everything, staring down at the collage below you, made up of fields and rolling green hills, castles and lakes and mountains and hundreds of pathways that lead to a thousand more choices, endless lives that you could lead. You swoop lower and lower, just to feel the wind in your feathers and suddenly, you see.

You see what you were never supposed to see.

You see that all of those pathways, those hundreds of lives that you could've led all lead to one point. They all lead to the place you don't want to go – they all lead back home. You carry on flying, desperately trying to escape the life that has been planned out for you, the life you don't want to lead, but you realise.

You realise what you were never supposed to realise.

You realise that you can't fly any further, that the endless cerulean sky carries on infinitely but you can't follow it. You realise that the fields of green and the rolling hills beneath you are all that you'll ever see – your patchwork forest and silver rivers will never be below you. You realise that you're entombed; you're entombed to a cage. You're trapped.

The clouds don't quite taste like freedom and possibilities anymore (they taste like nightmares and chains) and the sky doesn't look as blue anymore, it's steely grey and claustrophobic and it's closing in on you, suffocating you and all you can see are the tarnished bars of your cage and the chains that encircle your legs and-

You realise you're never going to escape.

* * *

You stay in your suffocating cage of grey and you peer longingly through the bars at the other birds. They're all free, they have thousands of opportunities and they're not chained to any piece of metal. They never come within a metre of your prison (Bellatrix and her raven-black feathers and eyes of amber fire see to that) but they're close enough to watch, _to envy._

There's one, however, that stands out. He seems to hop a tiny bit closer than the others, he seems a tiny bit more daring, a little bit _wilder._ He has a fast-paced, mischievous song and ruddy feathers that always seem to look slightly different – one day they're brown, the next, they're glinting golden in the sunlight and the next day, you swear they're orange.

He sticks in your mind and he leaps on the back of the wind and darts down the stream, golden beak forever outstretched as he whistles his constant tune, his wings dipping in the dappled sunlight of the riverbank and his eyes searching, always searching.

He could go anywhere he wanted, but he always seems to come back to you. He stands outside your cage and he sings to you, in his cheerful tone, edging closer and closer each day.

You try to sing back, but the shadows of your tomb drag you downwards and downwards, and your voice is weak, jagged and broken so, you give up. But he doesn't. He carries on singing to you, even though he could be dipping through mossy fields and floating on the sweet breeze.

He stays with you.

* * *

One day, his feathers are kingfisher-blue, streaked with silver and ochre and it sparks a memory of soaring through the azure air, dreaming of tawny patchwork forests, aureolin sunlight embracing your gossamer wings. It sparks a memory of _freedom_.

You don't know how many days have passed, how many days you've been imprisoned here, but suddenly, it comes back to you – you remember the feeling of gliding and soaring, dreaming and believing.

You remember feeling _hope_.

And, you remember singing. You remember your golden birdsong, just like his, painting the world in your aspirations and your dreams. You open your beak and, for the first time in years, you sing. You sing with all your heart, you mimic his cheerful tune, you sing melodies and harmonies and crescendos and it reminds you of freedom.

You realise with a start that the dull bars that encage you are cracking, splintering into dust as you sing and you finally realise that you can escape, that you can fly again.

You dart out of the cage and leave it crumbling down, and you spread your wings and you breathe in the sunlight and the clouds that taste like fresh starts, new lives and liberty. You look to your left and there he is, just as he's always been, watching you with glinting eyes that have finally stopped searching.

They've found what they were looking for.

So, you spread your wings and he spreads his and you take off, together. You take off from the ground and you fly, you fly as high as the trees and the clouds and you sing in golden notes and you follow him as he shows you the silver rivers and the patchwork of orange forests you've always wanted to see.

And, that's how it remains for evermore – you and the boy with the cheerful song and the ever-changing colours, climbing up the cerulean sky.


End file.
